Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-01-13
A BEAUTIFUL EAR.
SINGULAR CASE OF A PATHETIC
OUTGROWTH OF SENSlBILITY.

Story Told to an Expert in Nervous
Affections - Particularly HIdeoss
Quest.
heard Of pathetic outgrowth of nervous
sensibility the other day. A professional
man who lives at the West End, and who is
not only painfully self-conscious man. but
also one given to observing things about him
with great minuteness, has become so acutely
susceptible TO the essential ugliness of the
human ear that he scarcely sees anything else
in the people about him than their ears. To
a physician, an expert in nervous affections,
whom he was wise enough to consult, this
gentleman told his story somewhat after this
fashion: at was as many as five or six years
ago that the sight Of a particularly hideOus
pair of ears, one of which hnd been slit in
CHASTITY manner in some acrident or fight, set
me 10 rejecting on the extraordinary caprice
of Providence in setting, in the most conspic-
uOuS place upon the head of its curious
earthly achievement, such utterly absurd and
unsiGLtly cOntriyances as human ears. The
ear is useful, no doubt; but might not an in
finite ingenuity and an omnipotent choice
have provided man with an auditory Hppli-
ance less hideous than this cOnvOlutel eI-
crtscencsi
STUDYING IT UP.
Il was led to ask myself, is there any such
thing as a beautiful human earl | looked up
all the passages in polite literature in which
tho human ear is referred to, and found not
only that such passages are extremely few,
but that the beauty referred to-all the com
parsons, of delicate, pink edged feminine to
the translucent interiors of sea shells, and the
like, are simply comparative. No poet ever
thought, so far as could find, of finding ab-
solute beauty In the ear. 1t is only a
pendent or an accompaniment, less hideCus
than usual, to the beautiful head and face of
q lovely woman, that the actual ear itself, as
apart from the faculty of hearing, ever be-
comes tolerable in poetry. In art the ear is
q thing to be diSsembled; no reallSt was ever
SO unblushiny as faithfully to paint the ear as
it is Photography reveals it in all its ugli-
neSs; but poetry bears the same relation to
art that the dissection of the body does t. the
love of humanity.
Tho running of these through my mind
led me to star: a sort of Holy Grail quest for
q really beautiful human ear, and at the
same time | found myself searching out,
whenever got upon a street car or a railway
train, and as l walked down the crowded
streets. all the ugliest ears, with the in
stlnctivs eagernesS of a connoisseur. The ear
habit grew upon me. became a sort of col
lsctor of ears. When | came into a railway
train filed with people, my eye ran down the
long rows of ears next the aisle TO See whether
there was a vacancy in the devious lines
that l might fill with my own That row
Of ears, TO q man who had fallen into tho
habit Of observing nothing else but the ears,
was horribly suggestive of a sea serpentl
NOTHING BUT EARS, EARS, EARS.
Il say that all this began five or six years
ago; but, of course, my mania-for such it
has become-did not all at once take this seri-
Gus form. It has been O gradual growth.
Now find it threatening, perhaps not my
mental balance, for l feel capable Of main
tanning that, but my peace of mind certainly,
and all my old sensibility to the beauty Of tho
human form and the loveliness of life about
NE. My old keen sense of the beautiful
lament, a fallen angel might lament tho
Joys of paradise. For me there is nothing in
the world hut ears, ears, ears. The pleasure
that l sometimes feel in meeting a specimen
less hideous than the rest does not repay me
for tho otfenss which the uniform dead level
of ill-shapeu growth infiicts upon me; and |
am resolved, if medical science can do any
thing for so strange a malady, to take the
utmost possible advantage OF 1t, II it could
80 influence my organs Of sight as to make it
for me ever again to see the hu-
man ear at all, it would bs a censummation
dsvoutly to be wished"
l understand that the eminent physician
consulted in this case was completely nom
plussed for . tims, but has at last succeeded
In 80 influencing the sufferers thoughts and
attention by diverting them to other cham
nels that be Is already somewhat less Poign-
antly conscious OF the ears he sees; that the
doctor is, in fact, fighting the old mania with
q new one, and intends TO check the new be-
fore 1t, in its turn shall take possession Of the
patient, as did the other The case, | have
no doubt, will suggest to more than one
reader something Of q similar sort i'll his
or experience. 1t is only one of
many morbid outgrowths of the keen COLI
sciousnesS, the rawness Of sensibility that
overwork aud intense mental strain have
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